Thursday, November 16, 2006

Kids=Terrible Marrige?

Last Thursday, I went to a party and talk inevitably turned to kids because there was one woman there who was hugely pregnant. In fact, Thursday was her due date. My friend Beth has a two-year-old, so she was the "voice of experience."

I've never had a child, and my opinion is that labor is different things to different people.

According to my husband's friend's wife Katie:

"Have you ever had really bad cramps? Childbirth pains are like that."

According to my friend Amanda:

"I can't believe there are so many people on this planet...and they're all a product of THIS!"

Beth took me aside and asked me if we were trying. I told her that we were, but we're not stressing out about it. Basically, Peter and I have been together almost ten years now, and although we would love to welcome kids into the world, we are nervous about how it's going to affect our lives - especially since none (and I mean not one) of our breeder friends seems to be getting along with their spouses (although to my face they always tell me, "it's great, I mean, totally great").

"Well," she said. "My marriage is completely terrible right now."

I love people who overshare, mostly because I'm an oversharer myself - so I grilled her about her situation. It's the same thing I see in all of my other friends...children are stressful.

"I love my daughter," she said. "And I've never experienced the kind of love she has for me and the love I have for her and I would never say that I regret bringing her into the world, but my marriage is terrible right now. But just because it's tough doesn't mean that it's not worth doing."

That is basically the best advice I've ever gotten from a friend about parenthood. Most everyone who talks about it goes on and on about how wonderful everything is, automaton-like. They give me lines like, "It's never too early," "I wished I'd started earlier," "It's the best thing I've ever done." But at the same time, they won't sit next to their husbands at the dinner table.

That's what we've been struggling with. Peter and I have a great marriage and relationship and we're best friends. We know that having kids is going to change our relationship radically, but we still want to do it. Call us crazy.